Description

Take control of a mechanical digging machine as you tunnel your way through the earth, searching for valuable gems and the even more valuable bags of gold! But watch out for Nobbins and Hobbins, and don't be careless enough to let the bags of gold crush you!

Digger is an arcade game combining elements of the popular arcade games Dig Dug and Mr. Do!. Players control the titular 'Digger' that can tunnel through dirt with ease. The goal of each level is to gather up each of the gems, which allows you to progress to the next stage. However, Nobbins and Hobbins are also lurking within the levels - Nobbins are fairly slow, but transform into Hobbins which are much quicker. The enemies can only chase Digger through the tunnels he creates - they cannot dig through the dirt themselves.

Digger's defenses consist of being able to shoot a single, rechargeable shot in the direction he is facing with F1 (which recharges after about thirty seconds), crushing his foes by digging underneath a gold bag and letting it plummet down, crushing anything in its path, or by collecting the bonus cherry that sometimes appears, causing Digger to become temporarily invincible.

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Trivia

Music

The background music is in fact the catchy Popcorn by Gershon Kingsley from 1972. The other song featured, when you "power up", is the famous 4th movement from The William Tell Overture, otherwise known as The Lone Ranger Song. The familiar ditty when you die is in fact an old Catholic hymn entitled Pray for the Dead.

Reception

Digger is the most widely recognized (and popular) of all Windmill Software titles; many patches, utilities, and even a complete disassembly and rewrite have been made. This may be due to the fact that Digger has a more complex structure than Windmill's other games which were merely variants of simpler concepts (Joust, Centipede, Galaxian, etc.).

Demo version

Digger is one of the four games featured in the "Windmill Software Demo Disk", a rare release circa 1986 which contained playable demos if Conquest, Digger, Rollo And The Brush Brothers, and Styx. The games contained more verbose gaming instructions than the originals, but only the first level(s) could be played. These demos were released into the Public Domain.

Related Web Sites

Digger Remastered (Andrew Jenner's rewritten Digger, which now runs on a variety of platforms and contains several enhancements. This is the only place you'll ever need to visit to learn about Digger.)